I don't believe the question came up at the fall conference. I assume the question relates to roads that have only summer residents and therefor are not regularly plowed in winter. If the Members of the association vote not to plow, then the power company would have no obligation to go where the road is not plowed. Their only obligation would be to shut off the power to that line until the road becomes passable. In the old days, that would have meant disconnecting the wire. Fortunately, lines are now provided with shutoffs.
But if there are seasonal homes or camps that need power over the winter, for example to keep minimal heat going, or to power a security system, they would be out of luck. This is something road associations should consider when deciding whether or not to have the road plowed.
The same applies if there is a fire. If the road is not plowed, the local fire company would not have access. (At most, they might come in with backpacks as for a remote forest fire, just to try to keep the fire from spreading to the woods.) This is one of the arguments some road associations give for charging the same rate for dues for seasonal residents as they do for year-round residents. While the seasonal residents may think it unnecessary for them to pay for plowing even though they themselves do not use the road in winter, they nevertheless benefit from having the road kept open in case their house should catch fire.
As a side issue, there is the question of how 23 MRS 3105-A applies. This is the statute that allows a town to vote to authorize the Selectmen to use town equipment on "private ways" when they deem it in the best interest of the public for fire and police protection. The term "private way" applies not to private roads, but to roads which have been declared "public easements." (See 23 MRS 3021 for definition.) This statute has been interpreted in very different ways by different towns.
At one end of the scale is the Town of Windham, which obtained "private and special legislation" to allow the town time to convert all of its private roads to public easements so the town could legally continue its historic practice of plowing private roads. This is a huge issue for Windham because over half its roads are private roads. Towns with fewer private roads have already used section 3105-A to allow plowing by making those roads public easements. The tradeoff is that those roads are then open to public use.
At the other end of the scale is a situation reported by one of my Maine ROADWays friends, who says that when a transformer on his public easement caught fire, the fire company sat at the end of the road and watched, saying they could not come in because it was not a public road.
Somewhere in the middle is the town of Fayette, which says that section 3105-A only applies WHEN there is a fire. That is, our Selectmen apparently are of the opinion that if our house catches fire in the middle of a snowstorm when we have not plowed yet, they would have to call a town meeting to get the voters' permission to use town equipment on the public easement. Then the Selectmen would have to consider whether putting out a fire at our house is in the best interest of the public. Then they would have to get the plow driver out of bed and have him drive across town to get the town's plow truck. Then he would have to drive across town to get to our road to begin plowing it. On the other hand, they do admit that WHEN there is a fire, they already have the authority to do whatever they need to do. As they have told us, "Don't worry, the plow truck will be right in front of the fire truck." That being the case, what would be the point of having a law that allows them to do what they already have the authority to do?
Our non-attorney opinion is that section 3105-A is supposed to allow a town to keep a fire lane open IN CASE there should be a fire. In other words, a town is not obligated to plow every road all winter. But where there is a road with winter residents who plow the road themselves, but after a while the snowbanks are encroaching on the road so fire access is becoming dubious, section 3105-A should allow a town to make a pass in and out with their wing plow to keep the fire lane open. It seems a town should have some obligation to see that they can provide their taxpayers with the services their tax dollar pays for.
That being said, someone is sure to say, "caveat emptor" - or, as we often hear, "You knew what you bought when you bought it." In other words, if you knowingly buy a place on a road that is not maintained in the winter, you should not be surprised if it becomes inaccessible when it snows. And if your road association votes not to pay to keep the road open in winter, they should not expect that the power company or the fire company can get there. So this is something that should be discussed at your annual meeting.